Category: learning curve

Pathos

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Pathos:

Ludovico Einaudi announced his 2025 album The Summer Portraits back in early October last year. And as an artist who has released many new-age, modern classical albums, it’s clear that he had read the room with this particular track from the release.

The album was written in summer in Italy, and while The Summer Portraits is generally uplifting, and tries to pull the listener out of the doldrums…

The new project is inspired partially by the musician’s childhood in Torino. “I always considered Torino a place I would never go back to live. It was very grey, very industrial – I felt like I was in a cage,” Einaudi says in a press statement. “It’s a strange place, very poetic in a way. The soul of the people is more hidden. They don’t show things off – you have to find the dynamism inside yourself…”

…Pathos very much acknowledges the starting place of that journey.

And that follows along with the findings of the World Happiness Report, which came out at the end of the last month. People are generally less happy. This snapshot was taken just before November last year (before the US Election), and the US (24) and the UK (23) were already at their lowest ever positions.

This graph shows a very basic “Life Evaluation” perception score for a few nations, where 10 is the best that your life could be, and 0 is the worst. I’ve included the score for Finland and Afghanistan – the top and bottom rated countries in the study.

I’ve also included Ukraine, who are just behind SA, despite having their country invaded by the murderous forces of a despotic, nuclear-capable regime right on their doorstep.

We don’t have the same issue with Botswana.

Yet.

It will be interesting, given the… er… somewhat “extreme” new US government and its wide-reaching policies, what next year’s results will look like.

Assuming we’re still here, of course.

This is 100% true

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I know. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

In this day and age, finding something which is entirely accurate, verifiable and genuine is as scarce as hens’ teeth. And yet, I can absolutely vouch for this being all of those things (the accurate, verifiable and genuine ones, not the teeth).

Yes, it’s a very simple graph, but it’s completely correct.

Memories of the 51 up from town: the stop at the top of Church Street, just by the Thornton’s and the back door of Awkward Square. Racing up stairs, wiping the condensation on the windows from the rain-soaked passengers so you could see the grey clouds and puddles out of the front, and then being King of the Bus for the 20 minutes home.

Magic.

I’m just sad that my kids never got to experience it. Still, if and when they go traveling – as the graph points out – they will still get that same rush as adults that we used to get when we were young.

Halcyon days.

Suddenly, Eurasian Chaffinch

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Yep. Exactly what the title says.

I was taking photos of horses in Hout Bay this afternoon when I spotted this little guy in the pine tree above me.

These birds are actually invasives in Cape Town, one of several species introduced by Cecil John Rhodes in his attempts to anglicise South Africa.

Interestingly, while many of his efforts died out very quickly and some are near ubiquitous today, the Chaffinch falls somewhere in the middle, and 130 years after its introduction, is still only found in Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs.

Like Hout Bay.

Birds raise their middle finger to humankind

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Finger? Feather. Mmm.

There can’t be many more clear and obvious ways in which one species defiantly tells another: “GFY”, than what crows are doing to humans in parts of Europe.

And it’s even more amusing because it comes down to humans trying to tell crows exactly the same thing – and failing.

It seems that crows in Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands have now been observed building their nests using birdspikes. Yes. This stuff:

…designed for the sole purpose of keeping birds off places where humans don’t want them, now repurposed (by those very same birds) as building material for their homes.

Incredible.

Untidy, but incredible.

When I’ve been over on Robben Island, doing beach cleanups, one of the saddest sights is the Kelp Gull nests made almost entirely out of waste plastic and fishing gear. So the idea of birds using manmade stuff isn’t new to me. But them using stuff that man made to keep birds off things is pretty special.

Many birds are known to use human-made elements in their nests. In fact, 176 different species have been documented nest building with synthetic materials, according to another study published this week in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Yet the birds in the Dutch study are exceptional for having taken something so purposefully built to minimize their presence and using it to rear the next generation.

In South Africa a few years back, these thing suddenly became very popular:

And they are irritating – even to humans. But I knew that their days were numbered when I saw a Red Winged Starling (Onychognathus morio) sitting on one and enjoying the spinning effect.

At the time, I thought that was amazing – and quite amusing – but it’s got nothing on the European crows.

Birds 1-0 Humans.

Couldn’t be bothered

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99% of the time, when I do a job, I do it properly.
If I’m doing it for someone else, I’ll always give it my best effort.
If I’m doing if myself, I’ll usually give it my best effort.

But there is that other 1% of the time when circumstances (tiredness, trivial job, working conditions, amount of football on the tele etc etc) come together and conspire to make me put it on the back burner or even, in some cases, give up completely.

I know I’m not the only one. And I don’t just say that with no evidence, because look at this town in Porters Lake, Nova Scotia:

What has prompted such laziness? A poor night’s sleep? A perceived lack of respect at work? Sheffield United being on at 4pm instead of 5?

Laurie Lane – Alliterative street name or gentle Celtic poet?
Keizer Drive – it almost rhymes.

Post Office Road – perfect – very descriptive.
(Until you find out that the local Post Office is actually on Keizer Drive.)

And when you’re pointing that out:

No, it’s not on Post Office Road, it’s on That Street.
Well, no. Not That Street. The Other Street.
Which is called Keizer Drive.

And then those abominations south of the main road. Appalling. Lazy. Disappointing.

As an aside, Nova Scotia Trunk Highway 7 (crazy name, crazy road) looks like a very cool drive. And some of the place names along that bit of coastline are superb:

Grand Desert.
Head of Chezzetcook.
Ship Harbour.
Lower Ship Harbour.
East Ship Harbour.
Watt Section.
Pleasant Harbour.
Mushaboom.
Musquodoboit Harbour.
Moosehead.

And the inevitable:
Wine Harbour, and Sober Island.

There’s a whole blog post to be done about the bizarre North American place names I have found while searching on Geoguessr. But NSTH7 really packs them in along just a couple of hundred clicks.